Kerry: Tsarnaev returned from Russia with 'willingness to kill people' (Updated)

4/24/13 9:43 AM EDT

Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that Tamerlan Tsarnaev returned from Russia last year "with a willingness to kill people."

He was asked after a meeting in Belgium if the United States has a problem with young people being hopeless about their futures, an issue that countries like Syria are grappling with.

"Well, of course we have the same problem. We just had a young person who went to Russia, Chechnya, who blew people up in Boston," Kerry said. "So he didn’t stay where he went, but he learned something where he went and he came back with a willingness to kill people."

His remarks appear to go further than those made by other U.S. officials, who have said they haven't determined yet if Tsarnaev received terrorist training during his 6-1/2 month stay in Russia. Tsarnaev and his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, are suspected of carrying out the Boston bombings last week.

Kerry went on to say that democracies, including the United States, need to do a better job with young people.

"I think the world has had enough of people who have no belief system, no policy for jobs, no policy for education, no policy for rule of law, but who just want to kill people because they don’t like what they see. There’s not room for that. That’s what we’ve been fighting against after all of the wars of the 20th century," he said.

"Now we’re in the 21st century, and it’s time for a different organizational principle. And we need to, all of us, do a better job of communicating to people what the options of life are. And we’re open. Democracies are open to people participating in the democracy, not killing people. And so I hope that we can all figure out how we translate these better opportunities more effectively in our politics."

UPDATE: (Wednesday, 1:06 p.m): A senior State Department official says Kerry wasn't trying to get ahead of investigators. "There’s an ongoing investigation led by the FBI and the Secretary was simply expressing broad concern about radicalism rather than indicating any new information or conclusion about the individuals involved,” the official said.